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Research

The major thrust of our research focuses on international or large-scale inter-ethnic conflict. Two broad, linked questions guide this research:

  1. Does violence perpetuate and repeat itself? When, how, and why? And because of whom?

  2. Can the cycle of violence be broken? When, how, and why? And by whom?

Below you find descriptions of topics our lab is currently interested in. All the research questions described here are investigated in multiple larger projects consisting of several studies each. Much other research in our lab done on a "smaller scale" is not described here in detail.

FUN FACTS

we study war & peace from different groups' perspectives: victims, perpetrators, and third-party groups;

How past suffering and perpetration of intergroup violence reverberate into the present. This project funded by the NSF and BSF uses a multimethod approach of self-report measures and impedance cardiography to:

  • better understand how/when collective trauma can (de-)escalate conflict;

  • explore victims’ and perpetrators’ historical representations of trauma, and the resulting motivations and behavioral intentions;

  • test whether historical representations of trauma are also represented at the level of cardiovascular responses of threat and challenge;

  • examine if threat representations can be turned into challenge representations through reframing.

Four field experiments and four physiological lab studies test our theory among Israeli Jews and Germans in the context of the Holocaust, and Americans and Arab Muslims in the context of the “war on terror.”

we collect data across a wide range of nations, cultures, and world regions, such as North America, Europe, the Middle East, the Balkans, and South East Asia;

our research is multidisciplinary, both in terms of theoretical roots and methodological tools;

Understanding and improving the justice discourse in Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. Drawing on and synthesizing previous literature on intergroup relations, conflict, and justice, this project funded by a Visionary Grant from the American Psychological Foundation (APF) explores the following research questions in the Israeli-Palestinian context:

  • whether victims seek retributive justice and perpetrators restorative justice, which leads to differences in (non-)violent conflict resolution strategies and differences in willingness to reconcile;

  • whether the type of justice victims and perpetrators seek depends on their identification with their group; and

  • whether one conflict party’s behavior in the conflict depends on the other party’s demands for, or offers of, justice.

we draw on diverse literatures in psychology, political science, sociology, international relations and law;

we integrate laboratory with field studies, bridging basic/process-oriented and applied/problem-oriented research;

Approaches to the aftermath of intergroup violence: Effects of international justice mechanisms on intergroup peace and reconciliation. This NSF-funded project seeks to understand the pathways from different approaches to intergroup violence (AIVs; e.g., impunity, trials, truth commissions) to intergroup peace and reconciliation. Ten studies in multiple post-conflict societies (e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia), utilizing a mix of experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational designs, and more heterogeneous and representative adult samples rather than college student samples, examine situational (e.g., victim vs. perpetrator status) and dispositional factors (e.g., ingroup glorification) of people’s reactions to AIVs and their underlying mechanisms.

we use questionnaires, electronic/ internet-based surveys, computerized studies, field studies, coding studies, behavioral measures, and multi-level studies.

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